Hi, and welcome back. My name is Jessica Knight, and I'm not doing a fancy intro today because I kinda wanted to get right to it. The episode that came out this week was on parallel parenting. I recorded that episode probably in November of last year, 2022. The... I held off posting it because I actually started to get a lot of people who wanted to do interviews with me, and I thought that it would be better f- to focus on some more of those topics, and obviously dive into the holidays, and I pushed it off. So that being said I wanted to talk about Yellow Rock, and that is what I encourage people to engage in when they are dealing with a toxic partner and they are still within the family court system. Yellow Rock or the Yellow Rock method was created by Atina Swithin, who runs One Mom Battle. I highly recommend you listen to the episode I did with her as well as go to her website onemomsbattle.com After my episode with Tina Swithen, I felt like I wanted to redo that entire parallel parenting Episode, but I know that there are so many people that are in just a severe toxic left, you know, black and white situation, and I wanted to leave it there, um, because I-- it's gonna help someone. But for those who are in the family court system, for those who really can't do full parallel parenting, full gray rock, I wanted to talk about this. So to take a step back, yellow rock is part of gray rock. So gray rock communication is when you're dealing with a narcissist, sociopath, or any other cluster B disordered individual, and there are not children involved. If your case is in the family court system, going gray rock with your communication style might have negative consequences on you. You can take elements of gray rock, but you don't want to take all of them Going gray rock or not going gray rock rather goes against what we learn when we think about dealing with high-conflict individuals. Gray rock is life-changing when you are divorcing a narcissist or leaving a narcissist because it, it gives you enough space so that you can re-regulate yourself. They, they really can't do anything with a gray rock. And now, for example, what's a gray rock method? Gray rock is when you are as boring as possible in your communication. You are a gray rock. This is when it's really hard to-- You use this when it's hard to cut contact, but when you need to continuously create that space. The best description I've ever seen of gray rock I found on Reddit. You behave like a gray rock. Not much changes. You're a rock, and you're gray. How are things going? Gray. What's going on? I'm a rock You basically give them the absolute minimum you need to to have a relationship and nothing more. So nothing can lead them to prying or being too involved That's what I did when leaving a really toxic ex and I... How's your day going? Fine. What'd you do today? Not much But when we are dealing with somebody that we share a child with, we really can't use purely gray rock So I wanted to talk a little bit more about Yellow Rock and what that looks like The Yellow Rock method is basically how to communicate with a narcissist in a court-approved fashion. That's how it's described by Tina Swithin. Sometimes it can be like learning a foreign language, which she very clearly points out on her website. Yellow Rock is a type of gray rock. It involves adding niceties to gray rock communication It's supposed to be friendlier, warmer, more inviting, more understanding, more compassionate With Yellow Rock Communication, the healthy parent is able to be a little bit more of who they are, and that's able to shine through communication It invites a little bit more reasonableness than gray rock would have. When you're gray rocking, the intention is to never speak to this person again But obviously when you share a child with somebody, there will be communication. But it still doesn't mean that you want to be abused. It still doesn't mean that you want to open the door to further abuse, it still means that your boundaries need to be very strong To lean more into something called Yellow Rock, you would need to envision talking to your ex in a business-like fashion You might be able to think about a professional email that you received where somebody was kind of really out of line, but what you needed to focus on was the content at hand. So there might be six paragraphs rehashing things that happened in 2018 and what you did, thought, felt, and what they perceived you doing, thinking, and feeling And you just need to stick with the current issue. That would be a Yellow Rock method. Steering the conversation in productive directions, ignoring the digs that they take, staying focused on the child, leaning into the future, only and only responding to those logistical items It also allows you to take control of narratives that are not true. You can say things like, "I disagree with your version of the event. I prefer to put that behind us. Can we move forward in this manner?" That way, you're not allowing yourself just to be like, "Great, glad you think that way," like how you might in Gray Rock, but more so of like, "No, I disagree And you move forward, but the guard stays up You don't believe what they tell you about your character. You still respond minimally without emotion, and you don't react to the extra drama. It doesn't mean that it's not so draining. It doesn't mean that it doesn't kind of cause, you know, chaos in your head. But it's a strategy, and it has nothing to do with them at the end of the day, but everything to do with you and your child. I had a very deep, um, family consolation session once where the I guess the healer, um, said, "Everything that you do is for your daughter. Every time that you do something nice, every time you're understanding, it's all for her, even if he has no idea. Just remember and come back to, 'Nope, this is for my daughter.'" Could still hold, still hold your boundaries, but to maintain that level of compassion and understanding And this might be the most important part, and this happens with gray rock and yellow rock. But when you are triggered, you need to step away. If you don't step away when you're triggered, you're going to respond triggered. Have rules for when you check your email. Have rules for when you respond. It's going to be really helpful So I will leave this there. I hope this was helpful If you need support, you can reach out to me at jessica@jessicanaightcoaching.com. My courses, coaching, and resources are on emotionalabusecoach.com, and you can find me on Instagram at emotionalabusecoach Dealing with this stuff is really difficult, and so if you do need support, please feel free to reach out
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